Why Almond Growers aren’t the Water Enemy.

A quarter-century ago, when I first started farming the fertile ground of western Fresno County, my crop was cotton. I wasn’t alone. Back then, the San Joaquin Valley had more than 1 million acres of white gold. Federal water cost me — hard to believe today — only $25 an acre-foot. And there was plenty of it. My neighbors and I irrigated inefficiently by sprinkler and furrow.